Calendar

Club seeks greater say in advertising

Close up of the types of advertisements allowed under the current rules. Photo by Kaitlyn McCall

By Jaime Garibay

College is a time for finding one’s identity, and some club members at Chemeketa feel that the college should allow them to have more control over their own.

These club members believe that the policies surrounding club advertising are restricting opportunities and can be improved.

“It’s so important to me because being in a club has given me a sense of community,” Courtney Lutz, a second-year Chemeketa student, said. “I go to our meetings and am surrounded by people who care about the same things as me. That is an awesome feeling that I want others to experience as well.”

Lutz is a member of the Campus Ambassadors club. She said that joining a club at Chemeketa has provided her with opportunities to connect with students she wouldn’t have met otherwise and she wants others to have that same chance.

However, during her experience working with this club, she’s noticed something troubling about the way the college allows them to advertise their events. Clubs are working hard churning out posters to recruit students and help create a place where they can express themselves. However, the current policies in place regarding club promotion make it difficult for them to achieve these goals.

“The biggest problem we’ve encountered with advertising our club is the fact that we don’t get to decide where we put our posters,” Lutz said.

Clubs not only have to allow their posters to be hung by Student Life staff, but must also abide by their schedule.

“The process can be painstakingly slow,” Lutz said. “It can take up to three days before we see the posters around campus. I know there are plenty of students looking for something to connect to, but aren’t aware of the opportunities. We want to show them there’s opportunities. It needs to be easier for clubs to get the word out.”

Adam Holden, the college’s civic engagement coordinator, oversees all clubs at Chemeketa. He explained that the reason that Student Life hangs the posters instead of the clubs themselves is that the posters can damage painted surfaces. They have to be careful to hang them on brick walls or bulletin boards.

When asked about club advertising, Holden said that resources are at the heart of the matter.

“Right now advertising isn’t the highest priority,” he said. “With the limited time we do have we’re scratching and clawing to put on the event. We do a lot of advertisement already, but I know there’s more we could do.”

Holden said that Student Life needs more full-time positions to allocate its time to several important things including advertisement.

When asked how he would respond to club members who may be dissatisfied with the current club advertising system, Holden replied that “I would say stay positive as far as focusing on what you can do and what opportunities do exist versus becoming too focused on barriers or what the school is holding you back from or whatever perceptions you have about what is holding you back. In my opinion there, in most cases, is always something more you can do if you decide to hold yourself more accountable and start taking action instead of sitting there and complaining. It’s easy to get in a complaining loop of ‘this isn’t working, the school is doing this wrong, why can’t the school help us with this?’ when they can be spending that time walking around telling people about your club, you know?”